Banned from the forums? Kiss all of your EA games goodbye. (Source: EA Support Forums)

Being banned from the official EA forums can cost you the ability to play your games online, or properly

The world of online gaming has always been a battleground -- not just between the teams in-game, but between those who play by the rules and those who break them. Cheating and hacking swings the balance of the game, griefing plagues many an MMO, and a degree of foul language is almost expected for online games that might be played by anyone over the age of thirteen.

Publishers like Valve have fought back with the Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) system and Bungie continued by tying their official forum accounts into the popular Halo series with a ban at the forums negating the user's ability to use the matchmaking service. Now Electronic Arts has stepped up enforcement to the next level, with threats of revoking the online ability of a user's entire game library.

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since it’s all tied to your account.

Currently, losing an EA Master Account will mean that the associated games will be unplayable through official EA servers. In the case of single-player games, the offline mode will still be accessible - however, titles such as Spore will no longer be able to receive content updates.

While it certainly seems easy enough to avoid the trouble by not joining or posting on the EA forums, your in-game actions can get you in trouble as well. Many a forum posting -- not on the official EA forums, natch -- has sprung up where a user has reported their Spore account suddenly suspended, after their latest creation was reported as particularly offensive.

Until EA clarifies the issue, as was previously done with regards to the DRM postings, it might be best for those with a penchant for Rick Astley videos to keep their hands off the keyboard.

"It's okay. The scenarios aren't that clear. But it's good looking. [Steve Jobs] does good design, and [the iPad] is absolutely a good example of that." -- Bill Gates on the Apple iPad